Closure
by THE-GHOST-OF-PURPLENESS
Summary: When Zoe Nightshade looks back on her life one day in Elysium, she sees pain and regret and anger and fear. It hurts her more than it should./ Zoe Nightshade finally gets closure, and Nico di Angelo is the one to help her through it.


_Closure_

When Zoe Nightshade looks back on her life one day in Elysium, she sees pain and regret and anger and fear. She sees Hercules, all bright godly glow and bravery and charm, and she sees her father, a dark spot in an otherwise happy time. What she does not see is change.

She realizes that, two thousand years later, she is still the same person as ever.

It hurts her more than it should.

* * *

Some time later, Nico di Angelo comes to visit. He's grown quite a bit, and that innocent aura she remembers is gone, replaced by something dark and angry, but she'd recognize those sad lost puppy eyes.

He grins faintly, waves at her, and comes a little closer. "Hi, Zoe." He sounds breathless and sad, and Zoe is reminded that it is very much her fault that his sister is dead, and she smiles weakly back at him.

"Hello, Nico."

He tilts his head a little, squinting curiously at her, before grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the street.

"Elysium is such a beautiful place," he remarks after a moment, pausing to take in the glowing buildings and the faint scent of spring flowers. She nods in agreement, thinking of the shooting range and the meadow—kept in good shape by Persephone herself, and closer to her old home than anything else in the world.

"Pity people like Hercules have to ruin it."

Zoe turns sharply towards him, jolted out of her reverie by his words.

"_Hercules?_" She doesn't mean it to come out so harshly, but surely Nico understands why this is such a touchy subject for her.

"Yeah." He tilts his head towards her, looking thoughtful. "You know, Thalia wears that same tiara now. Seeing you die really changed her opinion of the Hunters. When she's stressed, I can hear her say '_What would Zoe do_?' She really does look up to you."

Zoe touches the ghost of a tiara on her head, touched and certainly proud, but Nico's words still ring in her mind.

_Pity people like Hercules have to ruin it._

She stops walking and turns toward him. "Nico, why are you here?"

He freezes, staring hard at the ground.

"Nico…" she says gently.

"I thought you deserved some closure." He says suddenly, looking up at her with big brown puppy eyes. "Percy told me your story and I thought…"

She blinks, not expecting that answer at all. "Closure…?"

"With Hercules," he amends hastily. "He…was horrible to you, and then you spent two thousand years running away from it with the Hunters. I just thought…well, I wouldn't want to die and not have something like that sorted out, you know? But I will, because Bianca won't talk to me and I _can't_ talk to her, and I thought you deserved better."

He says it all in a rush, but Zoe understands and she is touched.

He looks at her face and sighs, relieved. "I just thought you might want to say all those things to him that Percy said to me, in person."

She nods, grateful. She doesn't even know what to say, but she has to say _something_ because this is too much to _not_ acknowledge.

Fortunately, Nico seems to understand. "Don't worry," he says with a bright, childish smile, "Save your words for Hercules."

She winces at the name but smiles all the same. "How do you propose we go about this, Nico?"

He tugs at her hand again, leading her farther down a road and towards the inner city. She knows why—in Elysium, the closer to the center of the city you get, the longer the people living (_existing? Afterliving?) _ there have been dead. Of course, there were exceptions to that rule. She herself had a little cottage near the meadow.

But it makes sense that Hercules would have a home as close to the city center as possible. In life, he had been a laughing, brave, sociable person—that was what drew her to him in the first place, and that was also what took him away.

She wonders how Nico knew this—how a boy so young and so sweet could possibly know so much about death—but he _is_ a son of Hades. Still, it worries her, the way he's so intricately involved with everything that a young boy should _not_ be involved with, and she wishes she could do something.

"We're here," announces Nico suddenly as he stops in the middle of a huge, airy square. Zoe has never been here, despite all the time she's been in Elysium, and she spins around to take in everything. The entire square is the epitome of Elysium—sparkling and clean and happy, emanating perfection—except for the tired, hunched man sitting alone by the fountain.

"That's him," whispered Nico, and she raises an eyebrow. _Her_ Hercules had been tall and smooth and bright and _free_—nothing like this poor worn beggar who looks burdened with a thousand lifetimes of guilt and regret.

She hesitates a bit, just because the words she wants to say don't seem quite fair anymore, now that she'll be saying them to a man who could hardly fight back.

"Go," urges Nico, and so she takes a breath and squares her shoulders and marches into the square the same way she used to march into battle.

"Heracles." She uses his Greek name, the name she'd used when they were being intimate and close, and smiled pleasantly at the old man.

He looks up, shock evident on his face, and then he stretches out a hand and strokes her cheek.

She jerks away.

"Zoe…"

Her eyes snap to his face.

"Do _not_," she warns sharply. "Do _not_ go there, do _not_ do _that_."

Hercules looks at her, sadness and guilt written all over his face, and she shakes her head. "You have lied to me and you have hurt me and you have no right to say such things."

He simply looks confused. "Zoe, I don't understand…"

She growls at him. "Riptide, Heracles, _Anaklusmos_, the sword I _made_ for you. The things I did for you. You threw all that away, like it was nothing."

There's a pause, loaded with everything she had been waiting to say for the past two thousand years.

"You threw _me_ away."

Hercules stands, angry. "I haven't done a thing, wrong, Zoe! And it's not like you weren't fine!"

Zoe touches the metal band on her head, wishing she could still say she was the lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, that she was the daughter of Atlas and a hero. She wishes she was more than just Zoe Nightshade now, because without all those titles and names she is nothing but Hercules is a hero through and through.

"I died a hero," she says finally. "I did not die happy."

He raises an eyebrow at that but says nothing.

"And do you know why I did not die happy?" She takes a deep breath, turning around to check if Nico is still there (he is) and plows on. "I did not die happy because of you. I loved you, and you, all you could do was leave me alone. I gave up my sisters, my father, my life because of you and I never had the chance to say what needed to be said."

Hercules frowns. "I _am _sorry for that, Zoe, but it was necessary."

She snorts. "It was not."

She wants to punch him, or shoot him with an arrow, but before she can make a move like that Nico is by her side, tugging her away.

Hercules raises an eyebrow. "A son of Death, I see?"

Nico glowers at him. "My name is Nico di Angelo."

Hercules shrugs, snorting at him, moving to walk away. "And you are here to…what, help Zoe say what needs to be said?"

Nico smirks, and walks away. "Already did. C'mon Zoe, we're leaving now."

As they walk away, she swears she can feel Hercules staring at her back, and the knot in her stomach tightens a bit, and she wonders if this is what closure feels like.

* * *

After that day, Zoe does not see Nico di Angelo for a long time. When he finally returns, though, he has grown even more. He looks happier, more lively, and there is a certain spring in his step that she does not remember him having.

According to the others, it's love.

She thinks it's just closure.

But the others turn out to be right, because the first thing Nico says when he sees her is, "I'm getting married and I want you to be there."

She blinks. "You are…getting married?"

Nico nods, grinning proudly. "She's perfect."

Zoe smiles fondly at him. She doesn't know Nico very well—he had visited sometimes, after that day, but they were short and the conversation never went deeper than polite talk, and it was odd that he was coming to ask her to be at his wedding.

"Then…why do want me there?"

Nico's smile fades a little. "My sister, as you know, was reborn a few years ago, and my dad isn't really the sort of guy you want at a wedding. And, well, you're kind of like family to me, so I thought…"

She smiles. "Of course. But won't having a dead girl at your wedding be a tad…strange?"

He shrugs. "She's got the Sight. Her parents are dead, so there's not that…and Percy and Thalia will be there, the other Hunters will be there. You'd get to see everyone else that you've missed, you know?"

She smiles.

And five months later, she's still smiling as she sits, front and center at the wedding. Nico looks handsome and smooth, and the bride is as beautiful as he had said.

She had said hello, politely, to the other guests. Percy and Annabeth and Thalia had all _tried_ to hug her, and Lady Artemis had taken one look at her and muttered something about how men these days were getting better and better.

She had grinned.

And now, that ever-present knot in her stomach was gone. She had said goodbye to everyone, as she suspected Nico had planned, and she was grateful for that.

She's still smiling at the end of the reception, when Nico comes up to her and smiles.

"Thank you," she mutters as they walk outside.

He nods. "You really are like family to me, you know. And this was as much for me as it was for you."

She nods. He is a child of Hades, and no matter how nice they are they always have ulterior motives, and they never do anything that won't benefit them at all.

She hugs him anyway.

"Thank you," she repeats.

And as she slowly fades away back into the Underworld, she feels something she hasn't felt in a long time: peace.

And for the first time in her life, she _knows_ that this is what closure feels like.

**Oh wow. That is the longest oneshot I've ever written, and I seriously enjoyed it. It was worth it, though, and I really did love writing this. Zoe is just...wow. She's my favorite Hunter, because even though she is the epitome of everything that I hate about the Hunters of Artemis, she is just such a lovable and real character. Anyways, please tell me what you guys think and where I can improve-I live off your reviews!**

**-the Ghost of Purpleness**


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